Transfer News: Iran international Sardar Azmoun claims he turned down chance to join Liverpool back in 2017
Bayer Leverkusen and Iran international Sardar Azmoun has claimed that he turned down the chance to join Liverpool way back in 2017. The Reds were interested in him then.
He was one of the several players who were on the shortlist of the Reds for a transfer in January of 2017 as they wanted to bolster their attacking lineup with former player Sadio Mane leaving to participate in the Africa Cup of Nations.
Ultimately, no one was signed during the window, which backfired on us. We were eventually eliminated from both the FA Cup and League Cup and also went out in contention for the Premier League.
Now, former target Azmoun has revealed as quoted in Liverpool Echo, that he turned down a move to the Merseyside club as he did not want to spend much time on the bench.
“There were talks of Liverpool having expressed an interest in me during the past winter transfer window. However, I did not feel the time to move was right.”
“I would have ended up playing a few games and then spent a great deal of time on the bench as Liverpool were only looking to fill a void for a particular part of their season.”
“I want to move to a big club to develop as a player and therefore I will time the move with great precision.”
The 27-year-old forward spent most of his career playing in Russia before he moved to Leverkusen in January this year on a free transfer from Zenit St Petersburg.
He has missed most of the matches due to injury and has featured in 11 games this season in all competitions. He is currently with the Iran national team for the World Cup and has featured in both their games, the 2-0 win over Wales being the latest.
Liverpool have gone from strength to strength every season and have added some world-class forwards to their squad in recent times. Had Azmoun joined us then, he could have been part of arguably the best era of our club this century, both in the league and Europe.
A chance to play for a top club like Liverpool comes very rarely. While Azmoun had his reasons to not make the move, it is highly likely that he must have regretted it in the long run.
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Azmoun, meanwhile, spent three years at Zenit St. Petersburg before securing a move to the Bundesliga this summer. He is 27 now and at this age, Leverkusen could turn out to be the ‘biggest’ club he manages to play for in his career.
Surely he will regret turning down the Reds when they came knocking on his door.
